Category: Blog

After Queen Anne Boleyn’s downfall in May 1536 King Henry VIII tried to have all trace of her existence removed from his court. He ordered carpenters and stonemasons to destroy every trace of her from his palaces. Although in the main this royal order was carried out there are two examples left at Hampton Court…

The praising hymn Te Deum is traditionally used by English Monarchs to give thanks to God at moments of national celebration. There would have been many times in Anne Boleyn’s lifetime when she would have witnessed the singing of a Te Deum. Some of these occasions were actually in her honour as the Te Deum…

On 19th May 1536 Anne Boleyn became the only Queen of England in history to be executed. She met her death by way of a sword wielded by an expert French swordsman. However what exactly was Anne’s regal status when she climbed the scaffold that day? The answer is that she was Queen of England….

On 2 of May 1536 Anne Boleyn, Queen of England was transported by barge down the Thames from Greenwich Palace to the Tower of London. She had been arrested and charged with having had a sexual relationship with Sir Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton and another unspecified man. In several accounts she is described as having…

There seems little doubt from the primary sources that Henry VIII & Anne Boleyn were married in secret over the Holbein Gate at Whitehall on 25 January 1533. In separate accounts both Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Harpsfield give details of the early morning ceremony, which was conducted by the King’s chaplin Mr Rowland, although Anne’s…

In or around 1522/23 it was common knowledge within Queen Katherine’s chambers that her maid of honour Anne Boleyn and Lord Henry Percy, the heir to the Earl of Northumberland were romantically involved with one another. George Cavendish who was at the time Cardinal Wolsey’s Gentleman Usher recorded later in his memories that… ‘Lord…

Between 3 and 4pm on the afternoon of Sunday 7 September 1533 in the 25th year of King Henry VIII’s reign Queen Anne Boleyn was delivered of a ‘fair lady’ ie daughter at the King’s Manor at Greenwich. Even though Eustace Chapuys the Spanish Ambassador was soon writing to his master Charles V that the…

As we saw from last week’s blog by late August 1533 Queen Anne Boleyn had retreated to the seclusion of her chambers at Greenwich and was patiently awaiting the birth of her son. The arrival of King Henry’s son and heir would secure the peaceful sucession of the English throne and insure the continuance of…

People often ask; how did Anne, a Knight’s daughter manage to get the King of England to set aside his wife of 24 years radically changing the country’s religious governance in the process? Amongst other theories there are two main schools of thought in relation to Anne’s involvement with Henry. Either she is described as…

Anne Boleyn lived in a time when there were few defined choices for women. Those born into royalty or great families were either married, remained childless spinsters or took religious orders. The notion of an independent woman would have been thought of as ridiculous and unnatural. Daughters were lawfully the property of their fathers until…

When Anne Boleyn joined Henry VIII’s court in the early 1520s she wowed the English with her style, dress and mannerisms. The contemporary observer Lancelot de Carles was quoted as saying ‘no one would ever have taken her to be English by her manner, but a native-born Frenchwoman’. Another unnamed source said “…and everyday made…

Historian David Starkey and Anne Boleyn’s biographer Eric Ives both state that Henry VIII’s romantic interest in Anne Boleyn began in earnest during the winter of 1524/25. According to George Cavendish who was a Gentleman Usher of Cardinal Wolsey the King was engaged at this time in a ‘secret passion, not known to any person’….